Frank Brogran also weighs in on Online-U debate

A postscript on today's column about a proposal to create Florida's 13th university and one that exists exclusively online: If I'm reading the tea leaves on this idea right, then Online-U starts to lose traction pretty quickly. Here's why:

As I pointed out in the column, it's not a perfect fit with Florida's other big higher education goal: to award more degrees in science, technology, engineering and math -- expected to be needed for the high-salary jobs with the most demand.

Some subjects, especially science and math, don't always work in an exclusively online environment.

Even Florida Virtual School, which provides part-time and full-time K-12 online classes as an alternative to traditional public school, acknowledges that.

Some science labs, for example, are hard to replicate through online simulations. Instead of dissecting a frog and feeling the pressure it takes to pierce the reptile’s skin with a scalpel, virtual school students perform a simulated dissection on a screen.

And when it comes to higher level classes, it gets even tougher to replicate the real thing with a computer simulation.

“When you talk about AP [Advanced Placement] and that level of sophistication, it does create more of a challenge for sure,” said Brian Marchman, director of student experience.

Florida Virtual School was awarded a district grade by the state for the first time this year. It earned a "C," and it's lowest scores were in science and math while it scored considerably higher in reading and writing.

And Frank Brogan, chancellor of the state university system, also recognizes some issues with exclusively online courses.

"A good number of my traditional students would not fare well in an online math or science program," Brogan told me. "They need very much the day-to-day interaction with professors and students in a traditional setting."

He also seems focused on the end game -- creating a workforce that will truly be appealing to employers.

"When I talk to employers they don't want people who just hold a degree," he said. "They want people who have experiences that go along with that skill set. Those kinds of experiences are found in classrooms and laboratories and campuses of the universities."

That doesn't mean Brogan is against online learning. He's actually very high on some of the programs that work well and pointed to some of the work being done by MIT and other top-notch schools that have experimented with online learning in math and science.

But Brogan also points to a very important distinction. We hear a lot of big numbers when it comes to the number of students already taking online classes at existing universities. At UCF, for example, 60 percent of the student body will be signed up for one this fall.

But it's important to note that many of those classes have a heavy online component, but also include some classroom or lab time as well. It's this kind of hybrid model that seems to be gaining the most traction and that can't be done at a university that exists only online.

"The blended program is really the lion's share of what's going on out there today," he said.

And that's where the Board of Governors or the Legislature could come in. A logical solution would seem to be to create a partnership that would allow Floridians to combine online credits from different state universities to achieve certain degrees. It makes sense considering the programs are already in place.

And it would seem to accomplish one of the main goals of incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford, who is pushing the Online-U idea, because it would help more people to complete their degrees.

But even that could face an uphill battle. Earlier this year, Gov. Rick Scott vetoed a pilot program proposed at a few state universities and colleges that would have aimed to do just that.